15036 IUPAC Gold Book - soil 10.1351/goldbook.15036 15036 current 1 Naturally occurring, unconsolidated mineral and (or) organic material at the surface of the Earth that is capable of supporting plant growth. It extends from the surface to \(\pu{15 cm}\) below the depth at which properties produced by soil-forming processes can be detected. Soil formation results from an interaction between climate, living organisms, and surface relief acting on soil parent material. Unconsolidated material includes material cemented or compacted by soil-forming processes. Soil may have water covering its surface to a depth of \(\pu{60 cm}\) (or less in the driest part of the year). PAC, 2009, 81, 829. 'Glossary of terms used in ecotoxicology (IUPAC Recommendations 2009)' on page 946 (https://doi.org/10.1351/PAC-REC-08-07-09) https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/15036/html https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/15036/json https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/15036/plain Citation: 'soil' in IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry; 2025. Online version 5.0.0, 2025. 10.1351/goldbook.15036 The IUPAC Gold Book is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) for individual terms. If you are interested in licensing the Gold Book for commercial use, please contact the IUPAC Executive Director at executivedirector@iupac.org . The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) is continuously reviewing and, where needed, updating terms in the Compendium of Chemical Terminology (the IUPAC Gold Book). Users of these terms are encouraged to include the version of a term with its use and to check regularly for updates to term definitions that you are using. 2026-04-18T03:38:05+00:00